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INTRODUCTION
EURIPIDES produced the Hippolytus in the spring of 428 B.C. He had already
written one tragedy with this title, not now extant, which the Athenians
did not receive with favour. Hence our present piece is evidently a reworking
of the first version, and in the form in which we now have it, in
the opinion of many, is by far the greatest of Euripides' plays. Its tone in
many places is almost Sophoclean, and yet it contains as well lyric passages,
marked by an awareness of nature's beauty, which have a distinct
romantic ring. The plot is relatively simple and depends but slightly upon
events that have transpired prior to the opening of the play. We need
know only that Theseus is now living with his new and younger wife,
Phaedra, at Troezen. With them dwells a bastard son of Theseus named
Hippolytus, whom the queen of the Amazons had borne him in his youth.
The drama grows directly from this situation and in the end unfo'ds the
tragedy of these three persons.
Despite its apparent simplicity, the play is most difficult to interpret.
Critics tend to reduce the tragedy to a study of the conflict between the
two forces symbolized by Artemis and Aphrodite—sexual purity, asceticism
over against passionate love. These symbols have their human
proponents in Hippolytus and Phaedra. One might be tempted to argue
that if each had not been guilty of going to extremes, there would have
been no tragic outcome. Such an interpretation, however, seems to lead
to an over-simplification, for the characters and the problem, when examined
carefully, prove to be far more complicated. Hippolytus is clearly
a victim of hybris, overweening pride. Pure and chaste though he actually
may be, he is pure in his own conceit. Likewise, though Phaedra has
struggled courageously to overcome her passion for Hippolytus, at the
last she exhibits a fatal weakness. Also Theseus, who does not function
symbolically, as in a sense Phaedra and Hippolytus do, and on whom
the heaviest burden of the tragedy falls at the end, pays the penalty not
only for his incontinence as a youth, but also for his hasty condemnation
of his son. The clash of these relatively complex characters renders suspect
any simplified interpretation of the play.
One of the most powerful features of the tragedy is the manner in
which Euripides rehabilitates the character of Hippolytus just before
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